It's a......GIRL

Today we headed over to the hospital for our first ultrasound there. I didn’t understand before today why we had to go to the hospital for an ultrasound when the doctor’s office has a machine. Well, for starters, this ultrasound took about an hour and the machine turned out to be the doctor’s office ultrasound machine on steroids, so a little more elaborate to say the least.

I had no idea that it would be so involved. The tech took a picture of everything, measured every part, recorded data, it was quite involved. Today, Tiffany should have been about 17 weeks and 2 days. After they put all the calculations into the computer they let us know that Tiffany is 17 weeks and 2 days so everything was right on target.

We were looking forward to today because we would find out the sex of the baby and we did, obviously. We arrived at the hospital right on time and checked in at which time they handed us one of those buzzers that you get when you are waiting for a table at the restaurant.  We were then shown the waiting room as the bar was not open yet...

In the waiting room we encountered other pregnant woman in various stages of pregnancy accompanied by mates, mothers and the like. They had a nice coffee machine so I helped myself and took a seat with TIffany and watched CNN’s nonstop coverage of the Clinton wedding.

Before long, our buzzer sounded  and we went to register where Tiffany got a full fledge hospital bracelet. No ultrasound yet. We returned to the weighting room sans buzzer, just waiting on a tech to call our name. A few moments later she did and I jumped up ready for the big moment. False start number 2. I was then told that they would come get me later when Tiffany was set up in the room. I sat back down and went back to my coffee and CNN while wondering why I couldn’t come along.

Soon enough the tech came back and got me and I was face-to-face with Megatron, I mean the ultrasound machine. I thought they would put the jelly on, get the picture going and tell us the sex. Not the case. After about 10 minutes of snapping pics of the femur and other parts that we knew were there, we arrived at the decisive moment/frame which is pictured to the left.

See those three lines that the arrow is pointing to, that’s baby Pirone’s, let’s say, special place. The other pic is actually of the face, taken later.

Tiffany has been concerned that I was going to be disappointed with a girl. Being the last male Pirone still able to have children, I do want to have a boy. But I want a girl too. Now the next time around, I may be a bit disappointed with a girl, but I guess we’ll see. I still have Chase, so we won’t have the numbers anymore, we’ll still be even. 

The ultrasound took an hour because baby girl Pirone was not cooperating. She was napping and hardly moving at all. Tiffany even drank some juice. No such luck, she could not be bothered. They saw everything they needed to see except for a few parts of the heart so they asked that we come back for another one in a month. We actually made it for the first Wednesday in September, that will be 22 weeks. It will be interesting to see how much she has grown by then.

After the ultrasound we headed over to the doctor’s office. I should say the nurse practitioner's office as Dr. Thompson was MIA once again. That makes one appearance by her in about 6 doctor’s visits now, if you’re keeping score at home. (I know I am)They said she was “sick” today, on a Friday, how convenient. I guess I could have been too sick to pay our bill for her services, but we went ahead and paid for the delivery today, you know the delivery that’s occurring in January.

Tiffany did ask why we had to pay the deductible for next year now and asked what would happen if the delivery was in December. We were told that they would issue a refund if there was a remaining balance after all the fees. Yeah, I’m not holding my breath. We are saving the money on the circumcision though :)!

After we found out the sex I had several thoughts, but the recurring theme was my concern over when my daughter would start dating and since Chelsea’s wedding is all over the news, how much her wedding would cost? I’m going to go ahead and say right now that it won’t be 3 million like Chelsea, but that’s not really the point. I don’t see myself talking it well when some guy comes over to pick my daughter up for a date. I’m hoping I don’t spend the next 16 years (that’s right baby girl Pirone 16 years) thinking about this.

Butterflies

Quickening is when the mother can “feel” the baby, but comes long before any sensation of kicking. Depending on what baby book you consult, quickening can occur any time after week 12 to week 20. Most sources agree that the feeling closely compares to that have having butterflies in your stomach. Tiffany was anxious to feel this and had been disappointed....until last week.

When Tiffany returned home from Memphis late last week we were talking in the kitchen. She said she was having a queasy feeling in her stomach and that she was feeling nervous while she was out of town. She hadn’t put it together. When I told her that it was probably quickening, she did get excited when she realized what was happening.  That has continued now for a couple days.

Yesterday we went with our neighbor Brittany to the galleria (shopping area) with Cameron, her son. That was an eye-opening experience. Cameron is just a few weeks shy of one year old and we’ve got to spend plenty of time with him over the past year. This, however, was our first excursion that included multiple destinations.

We made several stops on Saturday and each time Cameron had to be taken out of the car seat and put into a preferred mode of transportation, whether it be stroller or Baby Bjorn. Along the way he required cheerios, water from his sippy cup, a diaper change and of course plenty of attention which neither TIffany nor I had any trouble giving him.

The takeaway, things take about twice as long with a baby in-toe. We weren’t even there for the preparation to leave the house, packing the diaper bag including snacks and drinks, disposable tray for lunch, I can only imagine the time involved there. Of course Brittany handled this like a champ, but for the uninitiated, like myself, the realization was that a quick trip the store is not in the cards with a child.

Typically  we arrive at the mall, park the car and head inside. This process would typically take 5 minutes? By the time the car is parked, the stroller is set up and everything situated, it’s easily 10 minutes with baby. Now stop three or four places and you can see how the time can add up.

At one point I did crunch some numbers on how much longer we had to go places without a baby and where we should go before it was “too late”. It’s not that I am dreading it, but Saturday’s experience definitely made me realize that there are things I take for granted now that will be gone soon enough. Things like leaving a room without checking to see if everyone is still breathing, sleeping through the night, and getting in and out of the car in less than 5 minutes.

Quite the Racket

Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride....

So topics have been scarce recently. We’re kind of in a holding pattern until our doctor’s appointment next Friday when we should find out the sex of the baby...But then I walked to the mailbox today.

Tiffany is out of town for work until Thursday so I went ahead and opened an envelope from her doctor’s office. It was handwritten on the front so I wanted to see if it was something timely that I might need to address before she comes home.

Turns out it was timely and very informative. Please allow me to explain. I’ve gotten into this habit for pretty much my entire life of paying for services and goods after receiving those services and goods. Crazy!...I know. But as they say, you learn something new every day. Did you know you pay for the delivery of your child before the child is even born? Apparently, we owe in full by mid-August the cost of our physician’s services for the entire pregnancy and delivery. 

I’m going to try to stay away from exact dollar figures on this blog for the most part, but for those that have not experienced this, I’m going to share these figures so you can use them as a rough estimate. For the services of our physician, the bill is over $2,100. Now with our insurance, which covers 90%, the bill comes to $480 and change but that balance is due by 8/18. They say it can be paid in two monthly installments with the first due no later than 7/30...Call me crazy, but I don’t call it two “monthly” payments if the payments are due within 3 weeks of each other. ,

Anyway, this is just for the doctor, as they say in the fine print at the bottom of the bill. Hospital costs (can’t wait to see those) and any other costs, including the lab is EXTRA. Oh, and this is just for a run of the mill delivery. If Tiffany needs a C-Section, that’s an upgrade my friends, not included in this cost. But the best part is that if we would like to have our baby boy circumcised, that’s an extra $238  which is due ASAP. WE DON”T EVEN KNOW WHAT WE ARE HAVING YET....I used all caps there for emphasis in case you couldn’t tell.

So this is basically a deposit for what the minimum cost will be. Now while we don’t have a problem handling a sudden bill like this, I have to believe some people might. Also, I might be taking a huge leap here, but I meat A LOT of people now that have three, four, five kids and let’s just say they don’t have a lot of cash on hand. Who’s paying for these kid’s deliveries? I think I know someone who contributes and I saw him in the mirror this morning.

Don’t even get me started on the fact the doctor who we’ve seen for a total of 10 minutes so far gets paid over $2,100. I realize they have to kick some back to the office and staff, but still. Obviously we have insurance so it’s not a budget breaker, but it’s pretty hard to beat our insurance so a vast majority of the population must have some difficulty when it comes to paying bills like this that are unexpected.

I guess the alternative would be just to not have pre-natal visits,  not have insurance, go to the emergency room for delivery and then it would be free. Well, not really, it gets rolled into the cost for those that can pay. Good system, can’t wait to see all those savings from healthcare reform! (Note: Sarcasm)

Expanding Wardrobe

As I said previously, the time was coming for Tiffany to dive into the arena of maternity clothing. She did Saturday and I tagged along. We went to Motherhood Maternity or just Motherhood, we can’t decide what the official name is. Their signage has Motherhood in  large letters and Maternity in smaller lettering below. So is the Maternity part of the name or is it just describing what type of clothing Motherhood sells? Hard to tell, their website doesn’t offer much help either.

Whatever the store was called, we gave them plenty of business as Tiffany picked up four pairs of pants, two that are dressier for work as well as a pair of jeans and a casual/capri. For the uninitiated, the pants look like any other pair of paints, but instead of of belt loops, there’s a huge expandable waistline that can cover a pregnant women’s stomach. (I’m wondering when this sort of look will be acceptable for anyone, I’ll say 2035.) Basically, it’s a guard against a woman raising her arms in the air and exposing her stomach, instead the giant waistband is exposed.

Tiffany says they’re comfortable so that’s most important in my mind, that, and the fact that these are items that can certainly be used again in the event of another pregnancy. Maybe by the end of this pregnancy, we’ll figure out what this store’s name is officially.

Coincidentally, we had lunch at BJ’s before the escapade and our server was pregnant as well. She’s due in October and was certainly showing. When she walked over I was thinking she looked pretty young, but she had a wedding ring on so that made me feel better. 

By the end of the meal Tiffany had told her that she was pregnant too. Turns out, the server is engaged and she didn’t even find out she was pregnant until week nine because she was still having her period. The only reason she even checked was because she started to have morning sickness. We speculated that perhaps she got engaged after the news of the pregnancy.

At the end of the meal when I was waiting for Tiffany to come back from the bathroom, the waitress came over to say congratulations. (I was left out of the other discussion because I was in the bathroom earlier.) She then asked if I was putting on any sympathy weight to which I responded, “What are you trying to say?”. That got a laugh and then she said that her fiance was packing on the pounds, but it was because he stopped going to the gym and started eating whatever he wanted. 

“He just blames it on me and tells everyone it’s sympathy weight,” she said. “But trust me, he’s not that sympathetic.”

Ouch.

The Bump

We’re about to close in on 15 weeks (tomorrow) and Tiffany is definitely starting to show. Her pants have been tightening for a couple weeks, but now there is definitely a “pooch” or “baby bump” in clear view now.

At 15 weeks, this is certainly not unexpected, but what is surprising is that she hasn’t gained a pound yet. Yes, you read that right, Tiffany has not gained any weight. A few caveats, as I think I’ve mentioned before our first appointment was just after returning from Florida so that may not have been her “real” weight. Also, she actually weighed less at one point during the pregnancy than she did at the time of our first appointment so if you go off that, she has gained a couple pounds.

But the fact remains that going from her weight at our first appointment, she weighs a half pound less, yet is 15 weeks pregnant. We’ve joked that excess weight from other areas of her body has been siphoned to her stomach for the baby.

To the father the bump represents a constant reminder of what is on the way. I’ve heard and seen the heartbeat, viewed pictures of my unborn child, but those are just reminders every few weeks. Looking at Tiffany now, there’s no doubt something is happening inside her. Dad’s don’t suffer from any of the symptoms of pregnancy so it’s nice to have some visual conformation and it does definitely make it feel more real. 

Also with With the “bump”, comes the need for maternity clothes. As I was headed out the door this morning Tiffany said that the jeans she was wearing were on borrowed time and probably couldn’t be worn much longer. Not surprisingly like everything to do with pregnancy and newborn children, maternity clothing is a multi-million dollar business. 

There are roughly 4 million pregnancies in the U.S. each year. Even if each pregnant woman buys just a few items, that’s a lot of sales. I’m sure Tiffany will be visiting Modern Maternity and/or Target soon to be purchasing her first pair of maternity jeans and other clothes, particularly clothes she can wear to work. 

Absentee Father

So I missed my first doctor’s appointment yesterday. As expected, I didn’t miss much. Tiffany provided a urine sample and got her blood pressure taken. They also checked for the baby’s heartbeat which we had just seen on Saturday. The little one’s ticker was beating 158 beats a minute and everything was completely normal.

Tiffany made our next appointment for the second week in August. First we have an ultrasound at the hospital at 7 am and then we visit with the doctor at 8:45, an early morning, but we should find out the sex of the baby so very much worth it.

We were at a dinner party a couple weeks back and someone told us God didn’t intend for parents to find out the sex of their baby before it was born. I immediately pointed out that if that was the case, he wouldn’t have given us the ability to do so. That got a chuckle and some mumbo jumbo about how planning for something is controlling and that’s not what God wants or some such inane reason.

Meanwhile neither this woman or the other one that was agreeing with her had any problem taking an epidural.  I don’t recall anything in the bible about using drugs to relieve pain, but hey, I could be mistaken. 

The woman apologized later and of course we said she didn’t need to. She was just sharing her beliefs, no matter how ridiculous they might be:). She is actually very nice, but I didn’t and still don’t follow her logic. Needless to say, we’’ll still be finding out the sex of our child.

Tiffany is now at 14 weeks. They say the second trimester is the easiest, I guess the calm before the storm. Other than needing to buy some maternity clothes, the next couple months should be relatively easy.  

The Moranga

So it turned out to be not such a big deal for me to go with Tiffany to get an ultrasound from her mom while she was working. Tiffany’s mom just didn’t want the whole family running through the clinic where she was working that night so after dinner on Saturday, Kevin (her dad) drove Tiffany and I to see her mom so she could hook us up with some pics of our unborn child.

We were spending the weekend with them and on Saturday we went to Tiffany’s grandparents for dinner. After dinner and before dessert, we headed to see her mom, about 10 minutes away.

The place was dead, I guess there were not many emergencies the day before July 4th so I didn’t feel too bad taking some from the drug addict looking for a quick fix who seemed to be the only patient. 

Pam (her mom) showed us to a room and then left to get the ultrasound machine. She returned quickly and before long there was Baby Pirone in living black and white looking much more human than just over a month ago. I’ve posted two of the better pics, one is zoomed in with the baby on its back. The other, it’s turned to the side with face forward and you can make out a hand.

Since none of us are experts, we couldn’t make out the sex so that will have to wait until our “official” ultrasound in August. I’ve only posted two pics, but we have plenty, Pam wasn’t exactly shy with the print function on the machine. About halfway through Kevin came back and he got to catch some action too and there was plenty of action.

I was really surprised how much the baby moves around in there. Every two minutes it’s in a different position. We were there 10-15 minutes and I’d say we saw 40 different poses. I had read that further along in pregnancy that if the mother doesn’t feel anything for a couple hours then there could be a problem. When I read this I thought that sounded strange thinking that the baby could sleep for two hours without moving much. After Saturday I realized that it would be rare for this kid to stay still for two hours. Tiffany’s ribs are going to be in for a workout by the looks of it. Pam said the baby was doing the Moranga. Next doctor’s appointment is actually tomorrow, but I’m going to sit this one out because the are just going to listen for the heartbeat and take her blood pressure. Considering that we just SAW the heart beating Saturday, I’m not too concerned.

In Dreams

I was told by a couple of people that I was going to have strange dreams during the pregnancy. I thought it made sense for Tiffany to possibly have weird dreams considering the hormone activity in women during pregnancy but it didn’t make much sense for me to have them too. Sure enough, I’ve started to have some really weird dreams lately.

Probably the strangest occured a few days ago. The baby had been born and Tiffany and I were at a party being held for the baby in a house I didn’t recognize attended by hundreds of people, some of whom I haven’t seen or thought about in years. Very odd, especially considering that I’ve never heard of having a party for a baby AFTER it was  born (It was a boy by the way). Everyone seemed happy to be there though, which was nice.

A quick sidebar. As I sit here, Chase is actually having a dream. Have you ever watched a dog while they are sleeping and having a dream? Chase has some intense dreams and this one is up there. He’s whimpered three times, his tail has wagged and all of his feet have been moving at some point and, of course, his mouth has twitched. Sometimes his eyes will flicker and that is kind of freaky because you see the “whites in his eyes” since his eyeballs are rolled into the back of his head while he was sleeping. Overall, pretty entertaining though.

Anyway, the most memorable part of my dream, or at least the part I still remember clearly today, was when I asked TIffany where a couple of people were (I forget who I asked about) and she said that they were asleep, just like me. After a split second of thinking, “I’m not asleep”, I woke up only to find that my left arm had fallen asleep. Odd. With six months to go, it will be interesting to see how strange they get.

This weekend we’ll be going out to Tiffany’s parents for the long holiday weekend. Her mom is an ER doc and Tiffany was hoping to get an ultrasound performed sometime this weekend on the “down low” by her mom. 

We’re not scheduled for another ultrasound until the beginning of August. Our next visit, which is next week, the doctor will just listen for the heartbeat again, no ultrasound. Tiffany is anxious for a picture where the baby doesn’t look like a duck. I don’t blame her. Also, from everything that we’ve read, you can tell the sex of the child at this point if you get lucky on the baby’s position during the ultrasound. Just one problem.

I probably couldn’t go with her to see the ultrasound, it would just be Tiffany and her mom so not to draw too much attention to their activities. I’m against this. I’d get to see the picture, but I think we should find out together what the sex of the baby is. There’s a chance that they wouldn’t be able to tell, but it’s not the worth it to me. I want to be able to tell people what the sex is when the time comes, not be told. I don’t think it’s that big a request. 

We’ll see what happens.